Small children (e.g., babies and infants) are normally unable to release themselves from the harness of a car seat. As such, small children secured in a car seat must depend on a caregiver to uncouple the car seat harness and remove them from the car seat, or to remove all or a portion of the car seat with the child still secured therein. Unfortunately, caregivers occasionally (intentionally or unintentionally) leave a child strapped in a car seat in the vehicle while the caregiver shops at a store or engages in some other activity. This may be fatal for the child, who may suffer from heat stroke and/or dehydration, or be abducted. Accordingly, it is highly desirable to provide a system that alerts the caregiver and/or others when a child remains strapped in a car seat and the caregiver moves an unacceptable distance away from the car seat containing the child.
Additionally, many consumer products such as car seats are occasionally the subject of product recalls or other safety-related communications. Conventional methods for communicating recall or other information to consumers rely on mass media and public notices. For products such as car seats, the information is generally not directly provided to the consumer, leaving the significant possibility that such information may never reach the affected consumers. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a registration and notification system for communicating information related to products such as car seats directly to the purchasers.